Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

As gripping psychological thrillers go, Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough is about as gripping as you can get.  This for me was a great read that had me hooked very early doors and had me guessing the end plot right the way through to errmmmm well the end !!

The plot is centered around clingy single mum Lisa, her 16 year old daughter Ava who wants to cut herself away from her mums apron strings, and Lisa’s best friend and work colleague Marilyn. Lisa has always and still wants Ava to do everything with her amd rarely wants to let her out of her sight, but with her GCSEs finished, Ava is thinking about losing her virginity to Courtney whilst at the same time is falling in love with a mystery Facebook admirer. She has a group of friends from her swimming club who egg her on with Courtney along with spending time bitching about each other’s parents.

Lisa is successful at work winning a major contract for her company and the business is expanding so her boss Penny is bringing in new staff and opening a new office. Lisa and her work colleague / best friend, Marilyn are the older staff at work and have both been there for over 10 years and both are wary of the new blood coming in and taking over. On a works social night out Lisa sees Julie go in to Penny’s bag and steal some money only to go and buy Penny a bottle of wine and she doesn’t know how to deal with the situation.

Both Lisa and Marilyn have guarded secrets and neither shares with each other what they are, but both are aware that secrets exist. The plot starts to explode when Ava goes to the annual town fair and is dozing on the river bank awaiting her friends to return with some alcohol. A little boy falls into the river and is being dragged towards the weir. Without hesitation Ava dives into the river and with her swimming strengths, she manages to save the boy from drowning and is hailed a local hero. The local press take an interest in her story and Lisa inadvertently gets caught in a photo of Ava that then goes on to expose her past identity and history.

What then happens is a very fast paced story of both Lisa’s dark past and present life and how they both impact and suck in those around her including her daughter and Marilyn. Added to this a mystery person appears to be in the back ground but could it be who Lisa believes it to be seeing as they drowned a number of years beforehand.

Cross Her Heart was a fantastic read and if you love a really good psychological thriller this must go on to your kindle to read on your summer cruise this year.  You will probably want to read it at every given opportunity to try and work out what is going to happen and this book does not disappoint.

As I enjoyed this so much I will give it a whopping 9 out of 10 as I loved how the characters worked in and out of the storyline, how we learned about the secrets of both Lisa and Marilyn and the tense finale left me somewhat disappointed in a good way that the book had finished.

More information on Cross Her Heart, the author Sarah Pinborough and her other novels can be found at her website ;   https://sarahpinborough.com/about/

So I’m off on my holiday next week touring Washington DC, Toronto, Niagara Falls and New York before having a restful 7 days sailing back across the Atlantic on the legendary QM2. My kindle is packed with great reads which I will provide reviews on upon my return.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed the review.

Canberralover